Which Is More Effective: Studying Aloud By Reading Or In Mind?

What we want to suggest is to take advantage of both options, because both studying aloud by reading and reading in mind will improve different aspects. Although we often prioritize and give more importance to only one of them, the following is a look at the situations in which each practice may prove most useful.

Mind reading and visual memory

When we study by reading only silently in our minds, it would be ideal for us to read through the text first, which leaves us relatively clear about what the text we are reading deals with. However, studying does not end there. After the first reading, it is important to underline important thoughts, stop at those points that have remained unclear, and reflect or seek information that better broadens these questions and doubts.

It is important to both underline and write down notes; you can also use colored underlining pens for underlining, as they are known to favor visual memory, as remembering the location of information makes it easier to retrieve it from our memory. In addition, the use of colors makes us pay more attention to that information as well as look at the information that we have considered most important in the past.

The importance of reading in silence or mind lies in the fact that we can focus on what we read. But if we do nothing more than just read, this practice is not going to help us much. The reason is that we need to actively work on the theme we are studying and make it our own. In other words, just reading is not enough, but we should also add writing, notes, and putting the subject to be studied into our own words to internalize it. This is the crux of the matter, and for this reason studying quietly in the mind can offer us much.

Studying aloud by reading reinforces the knowledge

When we study by reading aloud, something happens that makes the ear a part of this experience, which also awakens, for example, cognitive abilities related to memory, attention, and comprehension. This practice activates the ability to store and store information that is found in our brains.

But as we mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is something else involved. Isn’t it true that for many of us, hearing an explanation from the mouth of others proves easier than reading one’s own notes aloud? This is because of the explicit reason that the reading is given personal value, it is explained in different words, but at the same time one can also ask, question and discuss the topic. All of this, in turn, enriches learning and favors the process required to internalize knowledge.

When we study by reading aloud, we make connections. Suddenly, we link our message to one we read earlier or to another page. We make a scheme in our minds that can support the pattern we used to do in silence or the reading we had already gone through without reading it aloud. Studying aloud by reading aloud is an ideal addition that reinforces the information already learned and stores it in our minds.

The benefits of self-listening

Researchers Colin MacLeod and Noah Farrin are dedicated to studying the impact of their own sound production and its relationship to learning. Indeed, since 2010, MacLeod and Farrin have focused their time on researching the subject, which led to the publication in Memory of one of their studies, “The Benefits of Self-Listening”.

In this study, they collaborated with a total of one hundred students at the University of Waterloo in Canada, all of whom they gave 80 words for the students to say out loud. Most of them also wrote down the words they remembered on paper for safety.

After that, they went on to another test, but before taking it, they had to choose 4 different ways to remember those words. One of these ways was to read them silently in one’s own mind, another was to listen to them read to someone else’s tape, the third was to listen to those words recorded in their own voice, and the fourth was to read them aloud.

The results were highly revealing, and the authors called them a “production phenomenon”. After two weeks of the test, participants were given a series of words that they needed to identify as belonging to the words they had read or remembered earlier. Those who had read the words aloud did best on the test.

However, the studies found that listening to your own recordings also helped you remember the information, whereas the effectiveness of another person’s recordings ranked threeth. For this reason, we can conclude that the more personal the recording, the better we also remember it.

In summary

While studying aloud by reading is a very good option, we cannot rule out other practices, as what we usually try to remember is the meaning of the material and not so much the individual words. In this sense, the combination of all the above methods can give very satisfactory results.

Some learn better by reading quietly in their minds, recording the text they read next, and then going through the recording by listening through. Others, on the other hand, decide to read aloud from the beginning and then only study quietly by writing or researching schemas made of the information they learn. In this sense, and based on the research mentioned above, the most important thing is that everyone would use exactly the method by which they achieve the best performance in their own opinion.